Page 77 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

‘We’ve been out for two hours.’ He gave her a slight smile, knowing she was trying to assuage his guilt, but it would never leave him.

They kept riding, the tent now in sight.

‘She had a nosebleed. I caused it. I was scolding her...’ He gave a pale smile at Violet’s shocked expression. ‘No, I did not hit my mother.’

‘I know that, but...’ She shook her head. ‘What do you mean, you caused it?’

‘My brother and sister had worked out that she had a confidant.’

He saw Violet holding in a gasp, trying to be as calm as he had been for her when she’d revealed her truth.

‘I had always known. Aadil seemed to know too. He was my protection officer then, but his father was an elder on the council.’ He glanced over, aware he probably wasn’t making much sense, but Violet nodded.

‘So, a bit of a stickler for the rules?’

‘Correct.’ He gave her a half-smile. ‘As I’ve told you, there is a lot of leeway, but discretion is the absolute rule.’

‘And she wasn’t being discreet?’

‘No. I was very concerned that she was going to get in trouble. And so I told her off. I told her to be more careful.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She started to laugh.’

They were almost back, and Sahir found he didn’t want to be.

‘Mother thought it was hilarious. She told me I was staid, and like my father, but then she was kind. She was always a bit wild, but she said she would be more careful, told me not to worry... And then her nose started bleeding.’

They were so close to the stables, to other people, and the horses seemed to intuit that, for they stopped.

‘She had leukaemia.’

‘You couldn’t have known.’

He said nothing.

‘Sahir?’ She questioned his self-imposed silence with his name. ‘Were there other signs?’

‘I believe my father had noticed a bruise on her back, another on her thigh. She told him she had been exploring the ruins...’

‘And did he rush her to the palace doctor?’

‘No.’ His voice was black. ‘He did not. I was told she fainted at breakfast.’

He saw her look over at him.

‘The doctor knew immediately that she was gravely ill. She was taken to the royal hospital. I was called out of school. It was that fast.’

‘That’s so sad... What was your father like afterwards?’

‘Much the same as he’d always been. He said the country had lost a brilliant queen.’

‘What else?’

‘Truly? Not much. He went straight back to work—not that he had a choice. The country was on the edge of war.’

‘Here?’

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